“Growth and entrepreneurship in a market is not so much about allocating existing resources within the market as it is about speculating about how resources can be created and used in more valuable ways. The market is a creative enterprise always aiming for the future and satisfying more wants and newly discovered wants. Thus, a governmental regulator or central planner has no data to use in making a “rational” plan because the data doesn’t exist yet. That’s the problem with central planning — you cannot plan with only unknowns and unknowables. That’s also why markets are messy, but decentralized decision-making within a profit-and-loss system generates the very structure needed for such decision-making.”

Never having all the data is why all governmental regulation and central planning should be rendered legally arbitrary and capricious. They are always created in hindsight because regulators and central planners fail to, and cannot reasonably, account how market participants are constantly learning and adapting, the context is ever dynamic. Plus, the remedies for wrongs are already available through such basic maxims as the non-aggression principle. Common law interpretations are often an extension of this very principle and have well-served western culture long before the advent of the nation-state.

Regulation and central planning introduces mass inefficiency and protectionism into the market. They cannot sustainably protect those for whom they were purportedly created. In many ways , every regulation is a “one-size-fits-all” approach. By definition, all regulation curtails choice, and this is almost always ultimately at the expense of the middle or lower classes — the politically unconnected.

Even when regulation appears to specifically restrict the rich — think Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002; then the 2008 meltdown; and now, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and its Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. These regulatory schemes have done nothing and will continue to do nothing in the protection of consumers other than make the associated products and services more expensive or available to fewer people.

In the case of these acts, if banks and financial institutions were not allowed to commit the theft of counterfeiting through legally sanctioned cartelization under the Federal Reserve System and the practice of fractional reserve banking under the protection of legal tender laws, they never would have been “needed”. There is simply no better regulator than having your own hard money at risk. If these banks were true banks, accountable to their shareholders and depositors, without the protection the Fed and taxpayer-funded bailouts, then again, no regulation would be needed. If more of us would take the time to break it down, then more would see that this supposed protection is not only an exercise in futility, but is actually a barrier to entry for greater market competition and diversity.

And all the while, earned income is redistributed through taxation for the benefit of those who can best afford to influence governmental officials to craft these regulations; then those remaining earned dollars are essentially counterfeited and de-valued again to the benefit of those with early access. And then, the pattern repeats itself until eventually financial collapse ensues. This constant meddling and repetitive cycles of theft are a significant factors in the boom-bust economic cycle which have afflicted modern economies for well over the last century — not surprisingly concurrent with the growth and development of centralized planning and fractional reserve banking.

Politicians and mainstream economists never talk about purchasing power (rather it’s DOW, job creation, interest rates, etc.), and how the above-mentioned practices have literally robbed generations of families of saved income, or deprived legions of everyday entrepreneurs the ability to better realize an idea, or for parents to spend more time raising their children. We need to first think of adhering to first principles — legally and economically, maximizing the purchasing purchasing power of all should be paramount. This is a merely an extension self-ownership through property rights and a cornerstone of true capitalism – not crony-capitalism.

Ultimately, regulation curtails choice, and choice is nothing other than power. So when you think that governmental regulation doesn’t directly affect you because you are not in that industry or that part of the country, think again. All people, products and services are interconnected. Regulation and central planning does not operate in a vacuum. Those products and services directly affected will ultimately be more expensive, reduced in availability and diversity; thereby decreasing your total choices and value to a wider array of customers.

And, what may be worse?

If these products and services are more basic in nature, then rest assured that other products and services which rely on these underlying components will be negatively affected as well. It doesn’t take a great deal of foresight to see that the system becomes fouled.

And for what?

For the arbitrary and inequitable redistribution of wealth; all of which is principally directed by government that is ever-nurtured and influenced by special interests primarily paid for by the un-connected working class.

Mr. Bylund makes many more excellent points about regulation and central planning. But more deeply, in searching for a sustainable solution to this sort of oppression, we really need to ask ourselves just exactly how far are we willing to go to solve this systemic dilemma with government. Because simply, government is synonymous with regulation. The problem with just being satisfied with a simple reduction in regulation never guarantees that the tide will not turn once again — to fight the battle again — all for the very same reasons that it plagues us today.

We need more openmindedness to more fully explore what system(s) of governance could provide the services that many think only a government based on force can provide.

And if we fail to find a more sustainable solution than the current structure of representative democracy, then we will be doomed to repeat the ebb and flow of waste, inefficiency and graft that have metastasized and made a mockery of our current system of governance — and the more poorer.

I suspect that most democratically-minded people have never stopped to think that democracy may not be what it’s cracked up to be. Perhaps, it too is a historical stepping stone to something better?

After all, at least in the United States, we’re brought up, educated and then repetitively reinforced through a myriad of media types and sources that representative democracy is the epitome of all available systems of governance. So good in fact, that we’re somehow morally justified in forcing it on others.

However, if it hadn’t occurred to some before, then after watching the last several months of the U.S. presidential electoral process, I also suspect that more folks may now be wondering just what the hell has happened to this country and perhaps with the democratic model as a whole.

So, looking under the hood: is representative democracy the best we can do?

And if not, what would we trade it for? Right? Because if we’re going to complain, then we better have a solution …and in the case of social re-organization, a damn good one for sure!

For many of the politically and non-politically minded, that may sound like a non-issue (probably mostly for the reasons above). For others, struggling for something deeper – whatever that may mean individually – and willing to think outside of the current political box (for you Constitutionalists, see the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence – you have the right and arguably the obligation to test fundamentals) that question can really inspire some passionate discussion; the type that could well overtake and ruin a good Thanksgiving dinner!

Nonetheless, at some point, like daily! …we need to continually recognize and remember that social organization has been in constant evolution since time immemorial and with the decentralization in informational resources, communications; and soon, energy and money, then this evolution will most certainly quicken to a pace unknown in human history.

And, as disruptive is that process has tended to be, in the long run it has proven better for the greater mass of humanity than not, but there is still obviously much room for improvement.

This social and political evolution …and a suggested solution (a likely inevitable one)… is very nicely illustrated and supported in the succinct and very readable:

It’s a fantastic little book! If you are not familiar with Mr. Hoppe and you are open-minded and desirous of moving toward a social organization which far better supports the free and peaceful movement of people, ideas, services and goods of all types, with greater responsibility and security that can be provided by any centralized form of governance, then he and a host of others at Mises Institute offer the most realistic way forward. Give it a read. See if it resonates.

Note: The views expressed are solely the opinion of the author.Conceptual source: Hans-Hermann Hoppe.Media source: Mises.org